Happy holidays, friends! This week, we have a special treat for everyone -- we're welcoming back the authors of our four favorite books of 2016 to celebrate their accomplishments and hopefully convince you that if you need last-minute or late gifts for people you love, you couldn't do better than these reads. With us today: David Dayen, author of CHAIN OF TITLE; Thomas Frank, author of LISTEN, LIBERAL; Sarah Jaffe, the author of NECESSARY TROUBLE; and our own Eliot Nelson, who wrote THE BELTWAY ...
Dec 22, 2016•40 min
This week, we bring you a Democratic party autopsy, of sorts. But it's not likely to be the one sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. And in fact, much of it was written before the election took place, and written by our guest, author Thomas Frank, whose 2016 book, "LISTEN LIBERAL" now, in many ways seem prophetic.But speaking of the Democratic National Committee, their future is now up in the air and it won't be settled until a new leader for the organization is chosen. And the way i...
Dec 15, 2016•44 min
President-elect Donald Trump doesn't just use his phone for tweeting. Apparently, he's also taking and making frequent calls with other world leaders. And hey, it's good to get to know other people. But there is some concern that Trump's communications abroad are being done off-the-cuff, without the benefit of briefing from the foreign policy community. And in a couple of examples, his mere phonecalls have had the potential to undo long-standing foreign policy goals and alliances. So, should thi...
Dec 08, 2016•42 min
Over the course of the presidential campaign, president-elect Donald Trump was quick to make elaborate promises to working class Americans, promising to do away with Washington's business as usual, usher in an era of tough dealmaking, and revive the country's moribund manufacturing sector. Three weeks after the election, Trump has earned himself something of a win in the area, with a claim to having saved a thousand jobs at Carrier from going to Mexico. But how different from the status quo was ...
Dec 02, 2016•49 min
It's Thanksgiving week, and by the time you hear this podcast, President Barack Obama will have already performed his ceremonial turkey pardoning duties. But here in the last few months of his presidency, Obama will have more acts of mercy on his mind as he heads for the exits. Today we'll discuss presidential pardons and commutations, and whether or not Obama will fulfill an ambitious clemency plan.Meanwhile, as Trump mulls the activities he'll pursue at the beginning of his presidency, attenti...
Nov 23, 2016•42 min
So *that* happened, Donald Trump is now President-elect of the United States. With this somewhat unexpected victory, the So That Happened team takes a deep dive into the messy transition process for Trump, and questions what will happen to the Affordable Care Act, and the future of America's foreign policy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 17, 2016•51 min
Welcome to our official 2016 post-mortem. Emphasis on the mortem. So, let's remember my first rule of political thermodynamics: an object in fucked-up motion tends to stay in fucked-up motion until a force sufficient to the task arrests it. That force did not materialize in this election. We'll try to get started down the path to explaining why that is.Meanwhile, the polling industry spent the bulk of election night coming to the numbing realization that the mechanics of their enterprise need to...
Nov 10, 2016•46 min
We have finally come to the end of this election cycle. It was too long and mostly terrible. And we're probably kidding ourselves that everything is going to be fine just because it's over. But let's end it anyway. At this point, you probably want to know what's going to happen in a few days time. You're probably looking to polling experts for certainty. One of our in-house polling experts is here to help. Keep calm. Look at the polling aggregate. And remember that there is always a margin of er...
Nov 03, 2016•57 min
This week, with the election winding down, Donald Trump is running out of creative ways to spend Republican money on himself. But the wily old grifter has still got it, and now people who thought they were donating to a presidential campaign have actually bought copies of the Art Of The Deal. We'll take a look at Trump's ability to rook gullible Republican donors.Meanwhile, the media has been having a debate about Trump's voter base. On one side you have people who believe it's entirely driven b...
Oct 27, 2016•49 min
This week, the season of debates has finally ended, with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican counterpart Donald Trump doing battle in Las Vegas, Nevada. And the emerging headline from the final head-to-head tilt is that Donald Trump doesn't seem to be planning for a peaceful transition of power, refusing to promise to accept the result of the election. That shouldn't pose a threat to our democracy at all, right?Well, for all the attention that Trump gets whenever h...
Oct 21, 2016•50 min
This week, with the help of WikiLeaks, we've finally gotten some real insight into Hillary Clinton's famous speeches to Wall Street elites, and you'll probably be shocked to learn that many of the policies she happily advocated in those circles are a little bit different from the economic agenda she's pitching now. We can't be sure, but it seems that Clinton is some sort of centrist? But the big question is whether or not Clinton might be pulled from these positions as the tide of conventional w...
Oct 13, 2016•49 min
This week, it's all about hot vice-president on vice-president action, as largely forgotten white guys Mike Pence and Tim Kaine laced them up in Farmville, Virginia. Who won? Who lost? Will it matter in the end? Surely our thoughts will be worth the zero dollars you paid for them, but we will offer them to you, humbly, anyway. Plus we'll set up this weekend's presidential debate between the two people that American actually cares about.Meanwhile, it is possible that things could get worse for We...
Oct 07, 2016•45 min
If there's been one issue that has animated the presidential race this year, it's got to be the future of trade. The Obama administration's efforts to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership in place have been met with resistance. The issue has been central to Donald Trump's pitch to the middle class. Hillary Clinton, somewhat recently and conveniently, has also come out against the TPP. So, great. But here's a question: anyone have any new ideas? As it happens, yes, Jared Bernstein of the Center on B...
Sep 29, 2016•55 min
I don't know if you've noticed this, but when people talk about how it came to pass that Donald Trump is the presidential nominee of a major political party and looking more and more like he could win, one group that often gets the blame is...well, us. The media. Has the press become the brilliant ally of democracy's gravedigger? Joining us to sort through this is the New Republic's Brian Beutler.Meanwhile, we return to the matter of Wells Fargo bank, who face huge fines for having feathered the...
Sep 23, 2016•55 min
This week, we have a bank dork treat for everyone as we are joined by author and historian Eric Rauchway, to talk about his most recent book, "The Moneymakers" and how FDR getting our currency off the gold standard is the gold standard of economic policy.Meanwhile, a bill that would allow the victims of terrorism to sue the states that sponsor such acts has passed the House and is on the way to the president's desk, where it is sure to be vetoed. However, this bill has such broad and bipartisan ...
Sep 14, 2016•52 min
Summer vacation is over, school's back in session. and the long hard march to Election Day is the only thing filling our days. Fortunately, we are sharing this journey with one of our favorite guests, MTV News' Ana Marie Cox. She joins us today to talk about the renewed focus on Donald Trump's shady dealings with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and how the Bondi story serves as unique platform to discuss the way the media has treated both the Trump and the Clinton campaigns over the past yea...
Sep 08, 2016•45 min
This week, joining us in the studio we have documentary filmmaker Steve Mims, whose latest movie, "Starving The Beast," details an ongoing crisis in public higher education. After decades of funding cuts, our great public universities are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable to the whims of agenda-setting politicians and post-crash "disruptors" who are angling to redefine these universities' missions and curricula -- leaving them as shadows of their former selves. The movie is coming soon ...
Sep 01, 2016•52 min
This week, we have got the latest storm and stress from the 2016 presidential race. The Associated Press rocked the Clinton campaign's world after they released a report detailing new concerns about the Clinton Foundation, alleging that foundation donors got better access and treatment from Hillary Clinton's State Department. Clinton's defenders have pointed to the fact that the AP failed to prove any evidence of quid pro quo. We're here to remind you that this is exactly what a defender of the ...
Aug 26, 2016•53 min
This week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump opted to shake-up his campaign for what seems like the twenty-third time. Paul Manafort, who was the campaign's manager -- and who was thought to be a force toward professionalizing the wayward effort -- is out. His replacement, Steve Bannon of Breitbart News, heralds a shift toward allowing Trump to fully fly his freak flag. Hopefully this is amusing to the aliens who watch over us. Meanwhile, in an effort to contend more substantively wit...
Aug 18, 2016•50 min
This week, we are going long on the politics of protest and the short term legacies of movements that have become an essential part of the public discourse. First up, we welcome journalist and author Sarah Jaffe to the program to discuss her forthcoming book, "Necessary Trouble: Americans In Revolt," which documents everything she has learned about the various protest movements that have emerged in post-crash America after spending years in the field with them.Meanwhile, we are marking the two-y...
Aug 11, 2016•52 min
This week, we are happy to have one of our old Huffington Post colleagues on the show for the first time: author and journalist Marc Lamont Hill. Marc has new book out called "Nobody," in which he traces America's state-sanctioned war on its most vulnerable citizens, from Ferguson, Missouri to Flint, Michigan and beyond. He joins us to talk about how much America has learned about itself since Michael Brown was killed, and whether or not forces are emerging that might achieve a more perfect unio...
Aug 04, 2016•1 hr
We are coming to you this week from both Washington, DC and from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the host city of the Democratic National Convention. The big issue of the week has been about unifying the party after a bruising primary fight between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and the man she dispatched, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. But while Sanders' supporters have, to some extent, made peace with Clinton's nomination, one issue has emerged that they've refused to back down on -- the Tran...
Jul 29, 2016•46 min
We are coming to you this week from both the nation's capital and from Cleveland, Ohio, the host city of the Republican National Convention, where amid the chaos, there has been one consistent refrain from the gathered delegates -- that Hillary Clinton should be locked up. Interestingly enough, not every party elder has been enthusiastic about the "Hillary for prison" meme, and there's a good reason why -- it originates well outside the party with the Alex Jones/Infowars conspiracy theory set, w...
Jul 22, 2016•53 min
It was just over a year ago that a Texas woman named Sandra Bland died, under mysterious circumstances, while being held in jail after being arrested at a routine traffic stop. Among the many unanswered questions was this: how often does this sort of thing happen? Well, in one of the most exhaustive investigations the Huffington Post has ever undertaken, we scoured the public records to find out how many people have died in jail in the year since Sandra Bland's death. And what we discovered was ...
Jul 14, 2016•53 min
This week's podcast seems to have a common theme: accountability. In the biggest political news story of the week, the FBI has concluded their investigation into the matter of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email server, and have decided no indictment is in order. But the report from FBI head James Comey was nevertheless quite scathing. It's a black cloud that could hang over Clinton's presidential candidacy, but the black cloud hanging over our politics seems to be that political e...
Jul 07, 2016•45 min
This week, an awful terrorist attack in Istanbul seemed to trigger less than the usual amount of Facebook sympathy, but the same amount of enthusiasm for torture from Donald Trump. Democratic congressional candidate Zephyr Teachout cruised to victory in the New York primary election -- will the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee get her back in the general? We'll ask Zephyr Teachout herself.Congress took off on recess without doing anything significant on gun control -- have Democrats m...
Jun 30, 2016•42 min
This week, Democratic members of the House Of Representatives staged a sit-in in the chamber to try to force House leadership to allow a vote on a pair of gun safety measures. But one proposal -- to use the so-called terrorist "no fly list" as a screener for gun ownership, comes encrusted in controversy. We're joined by one of Democratic legislators at the center of this story, Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke, to talk about what they hope to achieve and where things go from here.Meanwhile, a lot...
Jun 23, 2016•1 hr 5 min
This week on the podcast, we reflect on the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack that left 49 dead and dozens more wounded. We talk about the LGBT community, gun reform, and what if anything can be done to prevent another mass shooting.We also sit down with Green Party presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein. She lays out her platform for us, and explains why she's unlike Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 17, 2016•1 hr 10 min
This week, the primary season finally came to a merciful, and historic end, with Hillary Clinton reeling off series of decisive primary victories one day after the AP reported that she'd earn the backing of a sufficient number of superdelegates to take her to the nomination. Now comes the tricky part: Clinton has to forge a path forward in a way that integrates the durable legacy left behind by her opponent, Bernie Sanders. We'll commemorate the beginning of what will be a very interesting chall...
Jun 09, 2016•43 min
This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published new rules that would govern the super-scammy payday lending industry, in the hopes that new oversight will lead to fewer people falling victim to the industry's predations. Alexis Goldstein from Americans For Financial Reform joins us to evaluate whether the Bureau's recommendations have real teeth.Meanwhile, in New Jersey, we've had the first child born in the continental United States with Zika virus-related microcephaly. This l...
Jun 02, 2016•50 min
